Archive for the ‘Kiwi Stuff’ Category

This guy was one of the Rugby greats. He’s now got a serious case of All Black paranoia and is generating conspiracy theories at an alarming rate. The latest – that the All Blacks are getting the benefit of referees decision — is ridiculous.

First, he seems to forget that there is often not a direct correlation between penalties and yellow cards. A yellow card for violence, for instance, is an offense not predicted by penalties.

Second, the data is skewed by not associating penalties with repeated warnings – one of the Australian’s yellow cards was for repeated warnings. If NZ had offended next it would have been theirs.

Third, if you want to play the data game, throw in post game suspensions and correlate that to yellow cards – what you discover is that both Sth Africa and Australia were the most egregious offenders in the game and the cards were warranted.

In short, the conclusion presented is woefully short on analysis, let along statistical relevance, and coupled with a fair degree of paranoia and sensationalism.

It ignores one simple fact. Both teams were beaten by the better side.

Are you an exporter or a global company? It’s a subtle but very important difference. NZ tech companies have been confused on this one for too long.

Brand NZ does little for the NZ technology enterprise, so trying to derive some advantage in our clean, green, pure image is a waste of time. If anything it reinforces distance, remoteness and high cost. That’s not to say those values don’t work for our dominant industries – like agriculture and vodka production.

Don’t get me wrong, there is lots to love about being a NZ company with a bunch of dedicated Kiwis powered by Kiwi values. But that doesn’t mean you need to feature it.

At the end of the day, what we export in tech doesn’t weigh nearly as much – often it’s lighter than air. And more than often, while the IP is generated in NZ, the product is normally made in all the usual places. We in effect export ideas to people who make things for us and then export them to our customers who in term export the final product to their customer. You get them idea, if we are all exporters, why make the point?

"It’s important that New Zealand start-ups see themselves as global companies, because it may sound good to be a leading high-tech exporter [in New Zealand] but to the rest of the world it sounds pretty naff," he said.

Monro said being a New Zealand exporter gave potential customers and investors overseas the impression that their focus and scale was at a low level.

"I rail against the term export," he said.

Asked how New Zealand start-ups could escape being categorised as lowly exporters, he said they needed to be careful how they positioned themselves.

"If you position yourself as an emerging global company, it sends a completely different message."

Next Window is poised to become to of NZ’s tech giants. (And they are a supplier to Dell.)

Australia didn’t deserve to win. Their lack of finishing kept them way out of the game – as did the All Blacks defense. Moreover, they were awarded a dubious try on the basis of the Ref getting frustrated with the TV officials. Pathetic.

At some point here the Australians need to face up to the fact that Deans isn’t quite cutting it right now. They have some remarkable players who aren’t coming together on the field.

While we are on pathetic – why cant the NZ Herald keep their site up. Down again from over here. I’m guessing routine maintenance. Do they understand they have an international readership?

Lets also stop the nonsense about next years game being in Japan. When you consider that the population of the greater Tokyo area is 33 million, a crowd of 45,000 or so is equivalent to a crowd of about 1400 people in Auckland. So, a good turn-out but there are other places that need a spectacle like this – the US being one. Denver would be a terrible location though. Play the game in a major metro like LA.

Xero just raised $23.2m, again proving that great ideas secure great investors. What’s interesting is that they were able to attract the founder of traditional software maker in their space – MYOB – to invest. A massive endorsement of their strategy and product.

What is really amazing is that they have passed the 6000 customer number milestone, double the customer figure at December 2008. It also announced it had entered into a strategic partnership with Telstra in Australia.